Eyeing the UNSC

Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, made the case last friday for a permanent Arab seat (most probably filled by… wait for it… Egypt) at the UN Security Council. Not a bad idea, although scrapping the power of the veto would be better — or at least making the General Assembly or a plurality of Security Council votes able to override vetos.

Egypt Lobbies for Security Council Seat:

Aboul Gheit added that Egypt has made “significant contributions” on the regional and international level, and that it plays a central role in the African, Arab and Islamic spheres. He said that such considerations reflect Egypt’s “clear eligibility for, and appropriate capacity in discharging the responsibilities of membership” in the Security Council.

I can’t say I like the civilizational talk that much though. The UN Security Counil is about power, not equal representation of civilizations — whatever that may be. If anything, certain organizations like ASEAN or the OAU might have a seat where there is no clear candidate for regional representation. Of course, in the Arab world’s case, Egypt has a much better chance than the Arab League.

The Party of Tomorrow..

Al Ghad (Tomorrow) party bannerI was at the Administrative Court in Giza this morning to witness (as it turned out) the aspiring Hizb Al Ghad (Party of Tomorrow) once again not get permission to be registered as a political party. The Party Affairs Committee has turned down five attempts for this group to register, as it does with almost all aspiring parties. As others have done before them, the Al Ghad people have gone to the courts, but the judges decided to postpone the case till November 6. I don’t understand the legal intricacies, to be honest, but apparently this postponement means the case will have to be re-argued entirely; they are basically starting from scratch. What happened today (and yesterday, when the decision was postponed 24 hours) was that some of the members of the court never bothered to show up, thus making it impossible to hand down a decision.

Ayman NourThe aspiring party’s leadership consists of several prominent ex-Wafd members, including party head Ayman Nour and secretary general Mona Akram Ebeid. They have a detailed party platform, with constitutional reform one of their topmost priorities. They have also been building up quite a base, providing social services in some of Cairo’s lower class and squatter neighborhoods.

What was interesting today was the very well-planned and photogenic demonstrations of support that were staged outside the court (perhaps Nour’s wife Gameela, who is a journalist and the party’s press coordinator had something to do with this). Fifty to a hundred supporters, including many women, were allowed (or at least weren’t not allowed) not only to spread banners across the front of the building but also to enter the court building en masse. When it was understood that the wayward members were once again not coming (which was seen as an intentional boycott designed to keep the judiciary from handing down the positive decision that many expected), the crowd organized improvised sit-ins, broke into chants, and eventually stormed their way into the courtroom, literally knocking guards aside and battering down the doors.

At the recent NDP conference, there was talk of making it easier to allow new political parties to register. Supposedly, the appointment of several opposition party and independent members to the Party Affairs Committee and the establishment of a deadline after which the committee must answer petitions (they often just don’t ever answer) will streamline the process. Judging from today, those who want to found a new party in Egypt still have an uphill battle. On the other hand, they seem ready to fight.

Yoga not halal

This is the kind of stupid thing that gives Muslims a bad name:

A religious edict saps the energy out of yoga enthusiasts in Egypt, where clerics say the 5,000-year-old practice violates Islamic law.

Answering a religious question put forward, Egypt’s highest theological authority called yoga an “ascetic Hindu practice that should not be used in any manner of exercise or worship.”

The undated but recent edict was signed by the mufti, Ali Gomoa.

The edict, published in the pan-Arab daily newspaper Al-Hayat and obtained Sunday by the Associated Press, called the practice of yoga “an aberration” and said mimicking it is “forbidden religiously.”

There is a serious problems with the use — and perhaps the tradition itself — of fatwas, especially when they are given out by a government appointed sheikh. There is not meant to be in Islam, as far as I can tell, an “official fatwa-maker.” This is why Ali Gomaa has occasionally clashed with Al Azhar University, which has a council of scholars that often give out fatwas. But in principle, fatwas can be made by any person, and are usually personal advice given to individuals, not a reflection of government policy (and indeed Egypt has not banned yoga). The problem is that when an idiot or extremist decides that yoga is haram, or that a certain writer has insulted Islam, or that it’s OK to kidnap Americans working in Iraq, it often looks like he’s speaking to all Muslims. Particularly if someone powerful — the state, a fundamentalist group, a university — had decided that this person is entitled to make fatwas.

Blogging the NDP convention

For the past two days and until tomorrow, Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party has been holding its annual convention, putting a strong emphasis on what it calls “New Thinking” and the need for reform. And there have indeed been some important reforms introduced over the past two days, for instance the complete overhaul of the tax system — corporate tax for instance has been reduced by more than half. But the political reforms have been lagging and those introduced were mostly cosmetic.

Continue reading Blogging the NDP convention

Al Banna book ban

Gamal Al Banna is one of Egypt’s most prominent thinkers on Islam, although you wouldn’t think so from the treatment he gets from the “official” Islam of Al Azhar, the oldest Islamic university which is based in Cairo but influences all Sunni Muslims. Al Azhar has decided to ban a new book by Al Banna which continues his calls for a radical re-interpretation of Islamic law. As my friend Paul Schemm reports in the Christian Science Monitor:

In the now blacklisted book, “The Responsibility for the Failure of the Islamic State,” author Gamal al-Banna suggests ways for Muslim minorities in Europe and elsewhere to integrate into non-Islamic societies. He argues that it would be permissible for women to cover their hair with a hat, rather than a head scarf, and recommends men use an early Islamic tradition of temporary marriages, legal in the Shiite sect, to avoid intercourse outside of wedlock.

. . .

This is not the first time Banna has raised the ire of Al Azhar. Only a few years ago, he published a three volume work entitled “Towards a New Jurisprudence” that called for total reevaluation of Islamic law. He is also the brother of Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood from which most present day militant Islamic movements take their inspiration. Gamal al-Banna, however, has much more moderate views of the religion than his sibling.

“We must open the doors for the freedom of thought without any restrictions at all,” Banna says. “Even if one wants to deny the existence of God.”

Al Banna, of course, is the brother of Hassan Al Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1920s. The Muslim Brotherhood is the first modern Islamist movement, and has been for most of the past hundred years one of the leading political forces in Egypt. Its influence has also extended to elsewhere in the Arab world, from benign Islamist parties such as Jordan’s to more militaristic movements like Hamas in Palestine. Generally, it shuns terrorism, but supports it in Palestine where it sees it as a war of national liberation. The Brotherhood is much further to the right than Gamal Al Banna’s thinking, who is often grouped with a few other reformist thinkers as “leftist Islamists” because of his moderation and emphasis on social issues. In a sense, Al Banna’s precursors were the early Islamic reformers like Jamal Al Din Af Afghani and Muhammad Abdou who were, on the whole, much more moderate than the Muslim Brothers.

One of the tragedies of the political situation in most Arab countries in that these people have had little opportunity to make their voice heard, as they tend to be squeezed out of the political discourse between secular regime parties and organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, which is on the right -wing of a much broader tendency to look for Islam for political guidance. People like Al Banna, who in the past has felt comfortable supporting both leftist and liberal figures (he is for instance a supporter of Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who is interviewed in the CSM article and is a leading pro-US liberal in Egypt), are being silenced by fundamentalist Islamists, the stale official Islam of Al Azhar theologians and the decaying Arab regimes. This is why providing them a platform in the West — like Tariq Ramadan — is important if their works are to spread.

Egyptian culture in crisis?

Whatever else happened to the Egyptians?The Beirut Review (a literary supplement to the Daily Star) just ran a review I wrote of Galal Amin’s sequel to “Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?” (entitled, creatively, “Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians?”). Amin is an economics professor at the American University in Cairo, and he analyzes changes in Egyptian society and culture over the last 50 years or so using concepts of social mobility, productivity and globalization. This second book focuses at some length on what Amin considers Egypt’s cultural decline. As you’ll see from the review, I don’t agree that culture in Egypt is in such dire straits as Amin does (I just saw Ahmed El Attar’s play “Mother I want to be a Millionaire” the other night–a dynamic, original piece that comments on almost every aspect of contemporary Arab culture in a series of fluid, visually captivating, overlapping vignettes–and was very impressed), but he makes some valid points about the mediocrity of mass culture and the negative effects of state-subsidized venues for expression.

An announcement and a review

As you can see in the post below, there is a new poster on arabist.net. This website was never meant to be a personal blog, and Ursula Lindsey, who has written about Egypt for various newspapers and magazines, is the first of hopefully many other contributors you will see as the site matures. It is a labor of love and obviously a work in progress that depends largely on how much spare time I have. In the meantime, enjoy Ursula’s posts and do check out her other work, notably over at popmatters.com, where she will be soon be starting a regular column on Cairo. We’ll keep you informed.

Getting back to her review of Galal Amin’s Whatever else happened to the Egyptians, I thought it may interest readers to take a look at my own review of Whatever happened to the Egyptians, Amin’s first book in this series, which was published in the Cairo Times in December 2000. It’s not online, so click below to view the full post.

Continue reading An announcement and a review